"We very much welcome that The Bahamas has now officially expressed a strong interest in joining the Convention. Signing and ratifying the Convention will be a very significant step forward in implementing its commitment to tax transparency and effective exchange of information, in particular under the OECD/G20 Common Reporting Standard", said Pascal Saint-Amans, Director of the OECD’s Centre for Tax Policy and Administration.

The Convention is the most comprehensive multilateral instrument available for a wide range of tax co-operation to tackle tax evasion and avoidance, and guarantees extensive safeguards for the protection of taxpayers' rights. It was developed jointly by the OECD and the Council of Europe in 1988 and amended in 2010 to respond to the call by the G20 to align it to the international standard on exchange of information and to open it to all countries, thus ensuring that developing countries could benefit from the new more transparent environment. Already 111 countries and jurisdictions have joined the Convention.